Never fear... not a block when it comes to prattling on my blog, no. But a huge, seemingly insurmountable block when it comes to writing the introduction to the paper I hope to publish (some day).
I have a tendency to strike out unappealing sentences, instead of deleting them, when it comes to work related writing, so that I have a record of my thoughts. When the brain juices are flowing and the little grey cells are churning out ideas at lightning speed, this record is pretty invaluable. Unfortunately, when the engine splutters and the grey cells, instead of tap dancing their way to victory, are sitting and munching cabbage leaves in their ruminations, this record serves as a dismal reminder of how not-far I have come.
Attempt 1: Virally infected cells present viral peptides, in addition to host peptides, on surface MHC molecules. CD8 T cells recognize these viral peptides as foreign (boring... and basic. Could we get to the point, please?)
2: CD8 cells can exhibit non-cytolytic antiviral mechanisms. The most well known of these are interferons (Type I and Type II) and chemokines like MIP alpha, MIP beta and RANTES. (Oh, must not mention interferons at this juncture, spoiler alert)
3: Non-cytolytic antiviral CD8 responses to HIV infection are a well studied...(are they, really?)
4: Non cytolytic responses of CD8 cells to HIV infection are an important arm of the CD8 antiviral (highlight the word “responses” and press Shift+F7 to access Thesaurus. Thesaurus offers "reply", "rejoinder", "answer", "reaction", and "retort". Rephrase sentence to try to use "reaction", instead of "response)
Better move on to attempt #5
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Hurray! For the first time in my LIFE, I've added a picture to my blog entry! A giant leap indeed!
I like this picture because the man and the woman are so graceful about whatever it is that they are doing (sowing seeds?) and are so in sync. It's like an ideal to live up to or a fantasy to build: Ram and I doing day to day chores in a serene, coordinated, uncomplicated dance.
The reason I wanted to figure this image-in-a-blog business out is because I have a dream. You know those cooking recipe books with step by step pictures on them? I want to create a recipe book about protocols in science. Imagine- western blots, ELISAs, PCR! Everything that seems horrible and complicated to the lay person suddenly laid out in a neat, demystifying set of pictures.
Think of the advantages:
Next time you get a test result for something from the clinic, you'll know how exactly those results were obtained and then it is no longer as bewildering or as set in stone (because you know the drawbacks of that particular method) when you discuss them with a doctor.
Or suddenly, you realize, most of science is really exactly like cooking. You need a healthy dose of common sense and a bit of an adventurous spirit and you should be willing to take your results in a philosophical manner.
Science education has to be made more fun. People should WANT to do laboratory science and not be intimidated- regardless of what comic books say, it is really, really hard to get an explosion in the laboratory if you mix a bunch of random things together... especially in a biomedical laboratory. More than fear, I think it is boredom that puts people off science- who the heck thinks a bespectacled guy in a white coat is interesting? And have you noticed, all the educational videos in school teaching you how to titrate acids or identify cations/anions or even something as spectacular as cardinal birds mating will have the most boring voice-over in the world. "The male approaches the female and performs a mating dance to attract her attention" intones the voice. How clinical and sterile!
I shall begin by making this recipe book of science. This, by its nature and by my own inexperience, will be meant for people with some knowledge of laboratory science. Then, the world of science education will suddenly open up and I can start working on making science a fun thing for people of all ages.
*** Post script: Apparently, there is a journal out there (Journal of Visualized Experimentation) that has the same purpose, only it is for scientists and not lay people. So, the first part of Le Grande Plan is already complete. Now I shall think about how to put these in a nice enough way for kids and non-science people to read and like it****
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Best of the Year and Decade
Do you like all those "Best of" lists that come out every year?
My cousin Sudhir is, as he himself puts him, a rabid consumer of the many products of the American entertainment industry and likes to create his list every year.
I like going through his lists because I realize all that I have missed the past year.
So, for other clueless people like me: http://mediasaurus.blogspot.com/
I've decided to buy this Lisa Hannigan's songs- they're utterly singable.
My cousin Sudhir is, as he himself puts him, a rabid consumer of the many products of the American entertainment industry and likes to create his list every year.
I like going through his lists because I realize all that I have missed the past year.
So, for other clueless people like me: http://mediasaurus.blogspot.com/
I've decided to buy this Lisa Hannigan's songs- they're utterly singable.
Hairy Situations
My husband, RK, has a love-hate relationship with his hair. He first started growing it out long and wild as a form of silent rebellion against his boss when working in Grenada. His boss was the typical Indian busybody and micro-manager: he would want his underlings to do exactly as he told them, he would find out every single detail about their personal lives and comment disparagingly about them at every opportunity. Needless to say, he was a bit of a nightmare, and RK thoroughly disliked him. As he insisted on his subordinates being dressed a certain way, RK decided to to be subversive by growing his hair long and turning up for work in a ratty T shirt and jeans (he had an excuse for his clothes: Hurricane Ivan had just struck Grenada and had swept away all his possessions). When I first saw him, a few months after he had left his job on the island and come to the US, I had an instant crush- mostly because of his hair. The hair, combined with the fact that he had worked in the West Indies AND had lost his possessions in a devastating hurricane all combined to make him, in my eyes, the most mysterious and thrilling guy I had ever encountered.
RK basked in that admiration, preened when I praised his hair and soon, we were having conversations about hair care and the proper use of conditioner. Ahhh young love!
Soon though, he got sick of the hair. It crept into his ears and nose, it dragged his head back, our conversations about hair care were soon replaced by fights about who stole the last hair band and who emptied the shampoo bottle, and eventually, he started thinking it was time for him to present a more professional image to his colleagues at the university. So, off it all came. And suddenly he looked younger- actually, much younger than me, to my everlasting disgust. Older women cooed at his transformation, and told him that the cut brought out his eyes more and he loved the attention and preened some more, the peacock.
The problem with him is that he hates anything that is repetitive. Hair, to be short, needs to be cut every so often. He looked after his short hair diligently the first year. Then going to the barber became a bore. The hair grew. So he thought to himself, well, why not let it grow back again. Less work for me, plus, am I not a Global Health Fellow? People who are actively involved in global health and travel to distant parts of the world must have the right image. Short hair makes me look too goody-goody. I think long hair will fit the image that I have of myself.
So. Back came the hair. It grew and grew and grew. I complained bitterly. Firstly, it grew a lot faster and thicker than my own hair, so that when we stood side by side, my head of hair looked limp, lank and Severus Snape-ish whereas his gleamed and and swirled and performed magic tricks. Secondly, it was hard to hug or kiss him because his hair would get in the way. Thirdly, the sink in the shower would get clogged with all this hair and I would have to clean it up. We came to a compromise: he would wait for our baby to be born, take a picture with the baby and then instantly get that hair cut. This way, the baby, when older, would know that its father was once rather cool. And I would not have to put up with this hairy nonsense anymore.
Thankfully for me, I did not have to wait till April for that head to be shorn again. His hair grew long enough that when he slept, it would get caught behind his back and start pulling at his neck while he was sleeping. Then he ended up with some bad neck aches as he tried to change the posture in which he was sleeping. So, this morning, I saw my husband return from the barber's looking a hundred years younger and exclaiming at his increased neck mobility. And peace returned to our household.
RK basked in that admiration, preened when I praised his hair and soon, we were having conversations about hair care and the proper use of conditioner. Ahhh young love!
Soon though, he got sick of the hair. It crept into his ears and nose, it dragged his head back, our conversations about hair care were soon replaced by fights about who stole the last hair band and who emptied the shampoo bottle, and eventually, he started thinking it was time for him to present a more professional image to his colleagues at the university. So, off it all came. And suddenly he looked younger- actually, much younger than me, to my everlasting disgust. Older women cooed at his transformation, and told him that the cut brought out his eyes more and he loved the attention and preened some more, the peacock.
The problem with him is that he hates anything that is repetitive. Hair, to be short, needs to be cut every so often. He looked after his short hair diligently the first year. Then going to the barber became a bore. The hair grew. So he thought to himself, well, why not let it grow back again. Less work for me, plus, am I not a Global Health Fellow? People who are actively involved in global health and travel to distant parts of the world must have the right image. Short hair makes me look too goody-goody. I think long hair will fit the image that I have of myself.
So. Back came the hair. It grew and grew and grew. I complained bitterly. Firstly, it grew a lot faster and thicker than my own hair, so that when we stood side by side, my head of hair looked limp, lank and Severus Snape-ish whereas his gleamed and and swirled and performed magic tricks. Secondly, it was hard to hug or kiss him because his hair would get in the way. Thirdly, the sink in the shower would get clogged with all this hair and I would have to clean it up. We came to a compromise: he would wait for our baby to be born, take a picture with the baby and then instantly get that hair cut. This way, the baby, when older, would know that its father was once rather cool. And I would not have to put up with this hairy nonsense anymore.
Thankfully for me, I did not have to wait till April for that head to be shorn again. His hair grew long enough that when he slept, it would get caught behind his back and start pulling at his neck while he was sleeping. Then he ended up with some bad neck aches as he tried to change the posture in which he was sleeping. So, this morning, I saw my husband return from the barber's looking a hundred years younger and exclaiming at his increased neck mobility. And peace returned to our household.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
My New Favorite
Move over Jon Stewart and make way for Top Gear!
May I just say, LUUURRRRVE that show! I can only applaud their make-over. A few years ago, Top Gear used to be a terribly boring show meant only for car crazy males. My cousin brothers in Bangalore would watch it and I would try too. But seriously, you had to have in your brain a) cars and b) high levels of testosterone to find that show even remotely interesting.
But now! How it has changed! Sure, there's still a lot about cars, but it can easily be brushed aside in the face of all the other things they have going on. It's cars+reality TV+comedy all rolled into one. Last night, they had a race to the North Pole. Then they had a version of the winter Olympics with cars. Last week, they had a race through Africa in a car that had to be built/made in Africa. All highly entertaining stuff. It's a bit like one of Michael Palin's shows (Pole to Pole or Around the World in 80 Days), but with 3 Palins, instead of just 1!
The best part of it is, there's no back-biting among the three heroes of Top Gear: Jeremy Somebody, James May (I know his name because they showed his wee wee (as opposed to just wee) bottle up close. I guess they didn't want to pollute the North Pole, so they had to wee wee in a bottle) and Hammond SomebodyElse. They all seem to be pretty good friends, even though I think James and Jeremy like to pull Hammond's leg a lot, probably because he's much younger than them. What a change from American TV! You will NOT find a single show, reality or otherwise, without a great deal of bitching and back-biting people on American TV... unless it happens to be one of those evangelical ones, in which case you reserve the bitching and back-biting for other religions.
The show airs on Monday nights on BBC America- perfect, because I come back groaning and moaning in pain from my yoga class and I need distraction. And it goes on from about 8:30 to 10:30pm, which is again perfect because one hour is too short and I find that I can't stay up later than 10pm nowadays.
Which is actually one of the reasons why Jon Stewart and Co from Comedy Central have been falling in my books- they air at 11pm, by which time I'm usually fast asleep.
RK would say that the reason I like Top Gear is because I am an Anglophile at heart- one who prefers BBC to CNN, British comedy to American and so on. Really now, who in their right mind WOULDN'T prefer BBC to CNN? But here's the proof that I am not endorsing Top Gear just because it is on BBC: most of the shows on BBC America are quite TERRIBLE- Dr.Who (bad acting, horrible plots), Mistresses (Bold and the Beautiful made over with British accents. Could we please stop sleeping with everybody around us?), Robin Hood (bad acting, horrible plots) and so on and so forth. So see? These are my negative controls.
May I just say, LUUURRRRVE that show! I can only applaud their make-over. A few years ago, Top Gear used to be a terribly boring show meant only for car crazy males. My cousin brothers in Bangalore would watch it and I would try too. But seriously, you had to have in your brain a) cars and b) high levels of testosterone to find that show even remotely interesting.
But now! How it has changed! Sure, there's still a lot about cars, but it can easily be brushed aside in the face of all the other things they have going on. It's cars+reality TV+comedy all rolled into one. Last night, they had a race to the North Pole. Then they had a version of the winter Olympics with cars. Last week, they had a race through Africa in a car that had to be built/made in Africa. All highly entertaining stuff. It's a bit like one of Michael Palin's shows (Pole to Pole or Around the World in 80 Days), but with 3 Palins, instead of just 1!
The best part of it is, there's no back-biting among the three heroes of Top Gear: Jeremy Somebody, James May (I know his name because they showed his wee wee (as opposed to just wee) bottle up close. I guess they didn't want to pollute the North Pole, so they had to wee wee in a bottle) and Hammond SomebodyElse. They all seem to be pretty good friends, even though I think James and Jeremy like to pull Hammond's leg a lot, probably because he's much younger than them. What a change from American TV! You will NOT find a single show, reality or otherwise, without a great deal of bitching and back-biting people on American TV... unless it happens to be one of those evangelical ones, in which case you reserve the bitching and back-biting for other religions.
The show airs on Monday nights on BBC America- perfect, because I come back groaning and moaning in pain from my yoga class and I need distraction. And it goes on from about 8:30 to 10:30pm, which is again perfect because one hour is too short and I find that I can't stay up later than 10pm nowadays.
Which is actually one of the reasons why Jon Stewart and Co from Comedy Central have been falling in my books- they air at 11pm, by which time I'm usually fast asleep.
RK would say that the reason I like Top Gear is because I am an Anglophile at heart- one who prefers BBC to CNN, British comedy to American and so on. Really now, who in their right mind WOULDN'T prefer BBC to CNN? But here's the proof that I am not endorsing Top Gear just because it is on BBC: most of the shows on BBC America are quite TERRIBLE- Dr.Who (bad acting, horrible plots), Mistresses (Bold and the Beautiful made over with British accents. Could we please stop sleeping with everybody around us?), Robin Hood (bad acting, horrible plots) and so on and so forth. So see? These are my negative controls.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Tricks with WF
Eating a bar of chocolate when hungry is a sure shot way of getting the Wiggly Fetus to go crazy with the kicking and the wiggling.
Hahaahhaha
Note to self: Must not turn kid into a sugar addict even before he is born.
Hahaahhaha
Note to self: Must not turn kid into a sugar addict even before he is born.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The Girl on the Bus
It is a bitterly cold morning as I make my way up the street from my house to the bus stop three blocks away. I'm on the phone with my mom and my fingers are freezing and my scalp feels cold. I hang up, put on my head gear, cross the road to the bus stop and wait. After a few moments, anticipation gives way to desperation. "Please come soon, please", I beg the bus. My lips are frozen, my head feels heavy, my nose has begun to run and the person next to me is coughing.
The bus comes, crowded. No space to sit down. I push my way to the back, my ears ringing from someone's loud and persistent laugh. "Ka-ha, ka-ha, ka-ha", laughs this person, in a weird cough-laugh hybrid. It's a young, black girl on the cell phone, with a baby on her lap. I stare at the baby. The baby is asleep. Not a muscle twitches in his face, which looks like it has been carved out of beautiful smooth wood. I wonder, is that a real baby? Then, I see a small movement behind the closed eye lids. REM sleep! I wonder what he could be dreaming about.
His mother continues her conversation and her jarring laughter. She tells the person on the other line, "Oh baby, I haven't laughed like this in ages" and I think meanly, "Why did you have to start now?" In my stuffy nosed, heavy headed state, I gather much energy in feeling resentful and I pour it all out on this woman, with her head of stiff, glossy black hair that couldn't possibly be real.
I realize that I have seen many young black girls with and without babies on the bus, but never have I seen one who is pregnant. Where do these girls hide themselves when their bellies become huge? Do they not travel during that time? Do they suddenly come in possession of a car, which they lose once the baby is born? And they always seem to have the obligatory girlfriend who helps them out with the baby, carrying the stroller and the blanket and the bottle and such.
"I have had a great morning so far. Don't you go round ruining it by saying things like that", she suddenly yells into the phone. She yanks the phone off her ear, turns to her companion (the one holding the stroller etc), says something and then SHE, in turn, starts kaha-kaha- kaha-ing loudly. The first girl goes back to her phone and starts again.
So many older, white women turn and shush girls of other races when they talk too loudly in the bus. But in the presence of this overconfident, overbearing black girl, everybody is silenced. There are looks and glares and nudges, but there are no souls brave enough to tap this girl on her shoulder and ask her to SHUT UP. Why don't you do it, I ask myself. No effing way, I answer. She'll start yelling at me and then I'll die of embarrassment.
The baby makes a sudden move. How does he feel about his mother? He is able to sleep quite soundly through the racket that she's making, so he must be used to her. I imagine him growing up, 2, 8, 13, 25 years of age. How will she appear to him then? Does she resent him now for taking away her freedom? Does she think of him as a nuisance, to be shoved into other hands while she's busy on the phone? Did she take her prenatal vitamins regularly when he was still in her womb? Did she remember not to drink alcohol or stand too close to people who were smoking?
I feel depressed at these thoughts. The baby seems perfectly fine to me. So many babies are perfectly fine, regardless of the things their mothers do or had to do. Didn't my own ancestors give birth without what we today would call adequate prenatal care? And if they weren't successful in this endeavor, what did it matter, two or three generations down the line? It was sad perhaps, but a baby lost here or there didn't make a huge difference to the relentless pace of humanity.
My mind races down this spiral of dark thoughts, an artery throbs in my head, my eyes burn and my nose feels swollen up. "God, I'm going to be sick", I moan to myself.
The bus stops. A whole lot of students with large book bags descends. The air clears. I yank my winter hat off my head. Immediately the world becomes better. The throbbing stops, the burn in my eyes disappears and I am able to breathe. Jeez, I really need to get something a little less tight for my head, I think.
The bus comes, crowded. No space to sit down. I push my way to the back, my ears ringing from someone's loud and persistent laugh. "Ka-ha, ka-ha, ka-ha", laughs this person, in a weird cough-laugh hybrid. It's a young, black girl on the cell phone, with a baby on her lap. I stare at the baby. The baby is asleep. Not a muscle twitches in his face, which looks like it has been carved out of beautiful smooth wood. I wonder, is that a real baby? Then, I see a small movement behind the closed eye lids. REM sleep! I wonder what he could be dreaming about.
His mother continues her conversation and her jarring laughter. She tells the person on the other line, "Oh baby, I haven't laughed like this in ages" and I think meanly, "Why did you have to start now?" In my stuffy nosed, heavy headed state, I gather much energy in feeling resentful and I pour it all out on this woman, with her head of stiff, glossy black hair that couldn't possibly be real.
I realize that I have seen many young black girls with and without babies on the bus, but never have I seen one who is pregnant. Where do these girls hide themselves when their bellies become huge? Do they not travel during that time? Do they suddenly come in possession of a car, which they lose once the baby is born? And they always seem to have the obligatory girlfriend who helps them out with the baby, carrying the stroller and the blanket and the bottle and such.
"I have had a great morning so far. Don't you go round ruining it by saying things like that", she suddenly yells into the phone. She yanks the phone off her ear, turns to her companion (the one holding the stroller etc), says something and then SHE, in turn, starts kaha-kaha- kaha-ing loudly. The first girl goes back to her phone and starts again.
So many older, white women turn and shush girls of other races when they talk too loudly in the bus. But in the presence of this overconfident, overbearing black girl, everybody is silenced. There are looks and glares and nudges, but there are no souls brave enough to tap this girl on her shoulder and ask her to SHUT UP. Why don't you do it, I ask myself. No effing way, I answer. She'll start yelling at me and then I'll die of embarrassment.
The baby makes a sudden move. How does he feel about his mother? He is able to sleep quite soundly through the racket that she's making, so he must be used to her. I imagine him growing up, 2, 8, 13, 25 years of age. How will she appear to him then? Does she resent him now for taking away her freedom? Does she think of him as a nuisance, to be shoved into other hands while she's busy on the phone? Did she take her prenatal vitamins regularly when he was still in her womb? Did she remember not to drink alcohol or stand too close to people who were smoking?
I feel depressed at these thoughts. The baby seems perfectly fine to me. So many babies are perfectly fine, regardless of the things their mothers do or had to do. Didn't my own ancestors give birth without what we today would call adequate prenatal care? And if they weren't successful in this endeavor, what did it matter, two or three generations down the line? It was sad perhaps, but a baby lost here or there didn't make a huge difference to the relentless pace of humanity.
My mind races down this spiral of dark thoughts, an artery throbs in my head, my eyes burn and my nose feels swollen up. "God, I'm going to be sick", I moan to myself.
The bus stops. A whole lot of students with large book bags descends. The air clears. I yank my winter hat off my head. Immediately the world becomes better. The throbbing stops, the burn in my eyes disappears and I am able to breathe. Jeez, I really need to get something a little less tight for my head, I think.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A series of news articles
Boom! Hok! A Monkey Language Is Deciphered
-Nicholas Wade, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/science/08monkey.html?em
Good stuff. Would have been better if he actually had some videos/ audios to go with it. Oh wait, they're probably there in the PNAS paper, otherwise that paper wouldn't have got published. Never mind.
Boring article about marriage and how to "keep it alive" (only read the first couple of paragraphs... who knows, maybe it gets better): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06marriage-t.html?em
And... an article about my lab!!! http://www.upmc.com/MediaRelations/NewsReleases/2009/Pages/GSPH-Microbicides-Grant.aspx
Alas, WE don't see much of the 7.2 million dollars. These figures of grant monies are terribly misleading. A good chunk is eaten up by each of the universities, then our lab only gets a fifth of the amount (because there are 4 other labs on the grant) and on top of that, there are various restrictions as to how that money can be used. But still... it's always nice to see one's PI being interviewed and quoted, and it's always nice to know that he's bringing in the bucks. When I grow up, I want to be just like Dr.G- with fingers in many pies :p
-Nicholas Wade, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/science/08monkey.html?em
Good stuff. Would have been better if he actually had some videos/ audios to go with it. Oh wait, they're probably there in the PNAS paper, otherwise that paper wouldn't have got published. Never mind.
Boring article about marriage and how to "keep it alive" (only read the first couple of paragraphs... who knows, maybe it gets better): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06marriage-t.html?em
And... an article about my lab!!! http://www.upmc.com/MediaRelations/NewsReleases/2009/Pages/GSPH-Microbicides-Grant.aspx
Alas, WE don't see much of the 7.2 million dollars. These figures of grant monies are terribly misleading. A good chunk is eaten up by each of the universities, then our lab only gets a fifth of the amount (because there are 4 other labs on the grant) and on top of that, there are various restrictions as to how that money can be used. But still... it's always nice to see one's PI being interviewed and quoted, and it's always nice to know that he's bringing in the bucks. When I grow up, I want to be just like Dr.G- with fingers in many pies :p
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Some People are MAD
Close to midnight on Sunday, I received a call from Sangeetha, a close friend who now rents the apartment that RK and I use to live in until about 6 months ago. She said there was a lady with a police officer who came to her house looking for RK. The lady told Sang that it was a case of car collisions and that our car had bumped her car and now she wanted revenge. Sang, being very wise and street-smart, told them that she couldn't get in touch with the previous renters, that she would contact the landlord and have him get in touch with us. And promptly called us to warn us of imminent bad news, as soon as they left.
My first reaction was one of outright fear. Police! Looking for us! Shit, and we hadn't changed our address on the license plate, which is why they went to the old house and now they would fine us for that! And though I couldn't recall RK bumping into anyone's car in particular, who knew? Perhaps he had broken something major and this woman was Out To Get Him.
RK, on the other hand, was rather sanguine. Bumped a car? Oh well, couldn't be helped, he supposed, he did have a habit of "kissing cars" while parallel parking. Police? Well, the woman probably hadn't given them a choice. What else was a police man supposed to do when accosted by a woman who brought him tales of wrong doing? Fine for not changing address? Well, how much could it be anyway? Now, he really needed to get back to his TV show, so would I please calm down?
I couldn't sleep that night. I tossed and turned and got out of bed many times to look out of the window to check that our car was still on the street and hadn't been towed away. The next day, still in a state of fear, I went online to change our address with the PA Dept of Transportation and also paid all outstanding parking tickets and miscellaneous fines (yes, we accumulate a lot of them. No, we aren't proud of that fact.)
RK called the woman (she had left her phone number with Sang the previous night) and am glad to say, started to get a bit more serious about the whole thing after the conversation. He really couldn't recall bumping any cars the previous day. Sure, he had parked on that street, but he rather thought that the timings were off. He told her he would call her back after work and spent the rest of the day, in the middle of patient consultations and minor surgeries, to ponder about the places and times he had parked his car the previous day.
He met her that evening, confident with his defense. He had a mental list of the places he had parked at and was pretty sure he hadn't done anything particularly malignant. She told him that, in addition to examining her car, she had examined his and could prove that the scratches on her car matched his. Therefore, she seemed to suggest, we dun it. And, of course, "Oh, this didn't happen on Sunday. It happened on Friday", she said.
Well, that flummoxed RK. For him to remember something that happened more than a few hours ago is a Herculean task. To ask him to recall on Monday where he parked on
Friday is too much to expect.
She went on, "And you might see the police in the near future- I filed a hit and run case with them against you"
Huh??!!
And then, the killer: apparently this woman is so jobless as to write down the license plate numbers of the car in front and behind hers EVERY time she parks and checks her car for scratches EVERY time she pulls out. She produced her little black book. And at that, what could RK do? He capitulated. Clearly, this woman deserved some reward for being so assiduous. If he had to be the one who would reward her for her investigations into car scratches and such, then so be it. Someone had to. With a feeling akin to awe and wonder, he produced his insurance documents (thank God we had remembered to renew that insurance!) and came back home to spread the word of this lady and her deeds.
I asked him, "What about the hit and run?"
He said, "Oh, she said she'd withdraw the case"
What a nut this lady is! She is clearly paranoid and neurotic and needs to get a hobby other than examining her car for ridiculously small scratches. I really don't understand people who are so enamored with their scraps of metal that they make a huge hue and cry about a scratch or a bump. So what? At least it wasn't you who was scratched or bumped! Put some paint or a sticker over the thing, and there! Problem solved!
And to go about filing cases against the police, to charge a hit and run against us for such a minor thing! Don't these police have better things to do? Instead, they spend their time persecuting innocent people who are too busy saving lives (well, not me) or working hard to worry about scratching cars- theirs or anybody else's.
Hit and run. Huh. People get confused between human beings and inanimate objects in this country.
My first reaction was one of outright fear. Police! Looking for us! Shit, and we hadn't changed our address on the license plate, which is why they went to the old house and now they would fine us for that! And though I couldn't recall RK bumping into anyone's car in particular, who knew? Perhaps he had broken something major and this woman was Out To Get Him.
RK, on the other hand, was rather sanguine. Bumped a car? Oh well, couldn't be helped, he supposed, he did have a habit of "kissing cars" while parallel parking. Police? Well, the woman probably hadn't given them a choice. What else was a police man supposed to do when accosted by a woman who brought him tales of wrong doing? Fine for not changing address? Well, how much could it be anyway? Now, he really needed to get back to his TV show, so would I please calm down?
I couldn't sleep that night. I tossed and turned and got out of bed many times to look out of the window to check that our car was still on the street and hadn't been towed away. The next day, still in a state of fear, I went online to change our address with the PA Dept of Transportation and also paid all outstanding parking tickets and miscellaneous fines (yes, we accumulate a lot of them. No, we aren't proud of that fact.)
RK called the woman (she had left her phone number with Sang the previous night) and am glad to say, started to get a bit more serious about the whole thing after the conversation. He really couldn't recall bumping any cars the previous day. Sure, he had parked on that street, but he rather thought that the timings were off. He told her he would call her back after work and spent the rest of the day, in the middle of patient consultations and minor surgeries, to ponder about the places and times he had parked his car the previous day.
He met her that evening, confident with his defense. He had a mental list of the places he had parked at and was pretty sure he hadn't done anything particularly malignant. She told him that, in addition to examining her car, she had examined his and could prove that the scratches on her car matched his. Therefore, she seemed to suggest, we dun it. And, of course, "Oh, this didn't happen on Sunday. It happened on Friday", she said.
Well, that flummoxed RK. For him to remember something that happened more than a few hours ago is a Herculean task. To ask him to recall on Monday where he parked on
Friday is too much to expect.
She went on, "And you might see the police in the near future- I filed a hit and run case with them against you"
Huh??!!
And then, the killer: apparently this woman is so jobless as to write down the license plate numbers of the car in front and behind hers EVERY time she parks and checks her car for scratches EVERY time she pulls out. She produced her little black book. And at that, what could RK do? He capitulated. Clearly, this woman deserved some reward for being so assiduous. If he had to be the one who would reward her for her investigations into car scratches and such, then so be it. Someone had to. With a feeling akin to awe and wonder, he produced his insurance documents (thank God we had remembered to renew that insurance!) and came back home to spread the word of this lady and her deeds.
I asked him, "What about the hit and run?"
He said, "Oh, she said she'd withdraw the case"
What a nut this lady is! She is clearly paranoid and neurotic and needs to get a hobby other than examining her car for ridiculously small scratches. I really don't understand people who are so enamored with their scraps of metal that they make a huge hue and cry about a scratch or a bump. So what? At least it wasn't you who was scratched or bumped! Put some paint or a sticker over the thing, and there! Problem solved!
And to go about filing cases against the police, to charge a hit and run against us for such a minor thing! Don't these police have better things to do? Instead, they spend their time persecuting innocent people who are too busy saving lives (well, not me) or working hard to worry about scratching cars- theirs or anybody else's.
Hit and run. Huh. People get confused between human beings and inanimate objects in this country.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Peace
... is that feeling when you open a new copy of a beloved book. In my case, it's a set of books: Complete Works of Jane Austen in one big hardbound copy, with a beautiful engraved cover and gilded pages.
I don't usually like purchasing "Complete Works" of anybody. If one is really interested in some author, one should bloody well buy the individual books. There's something of a "let's get it over with" and less of a "let's savor it slowly and reread the interesting bits" attitude about any complete-works-in-one-big-fat-book kind of a book. But a hardbound copy! And not just any hardbound, especially the new ones with the flappy covers on them which you can remove, but one in which a) there is NO ridiculous flappy cover in bright colors and b) each page has a little gold edging on it, so that when the book is closed and you look down upon the pages, a distorted version of you stares back and c) you can caress the book and what you feel is not something sleek and plastic-y, but something more well worn, with beautiful textures and interesting depths and curves.
I didn't open the book as soon as I bought it. I let it sit on my dressing table and every day, I would touch it a bit and smell its pages. And then, finally, when the moment was right (today, after a bath), I opened it carefully. The pages were delicate, the smell of 'new book' permeated the air around me and then, when I smoothed my hand on the page that had just been turned, it crackled. The bliss!
I don't usually like purchasing "Complete Works" of anybody. If one is really interested in some author, one should bloody well buy the individual books. There's something of a "let's get it over with" and less of a "let's savor it slowly and reread the interesting bits" attitude about any complete-works-in-one-big-fat-book kind of a book. But a hardbound copy! And not just any hardbound, especially the new ones with the flappy covers on them which you can remove, but one in which a) there is NO ridiculous flappy cover in bright colors and b) each page has a little gold edging on it, so that when the book is closed and you look down upon the pages, a distorted version of you stares back and c) you can caress the book and what you feel is not something sleek and plastic-y, but something more well worn, with beautiful textures and interesting depths and curves.
I didn't open the book as soon as I bought it. I let it sit on my dressing table and every day, I would touch it a bit and smell its pages. And then, finally, when the moment was right (today, after a bath), I opened it carefully. The pages were delicate, the smell of 'new book' permeated the air around me and then, when I smoothed my hand on the page that had just been turned, it crackled. The bliss!
Friday, December 4, 2009
Slate's "Write Like Sarah Palin" Competition
http://www.slate.com/id/2237261/
Some gems:
Runner-up: "In the soft periwinkle glow of the proud Alaskan morning, I awoke from my sweet slumber and sauntered over to the window to gaze longingly at that mysterious, mystical land in the distance that is Russia."
—Jessica Bonness
Second place: "Here's a little news flash for your Department of Media: Superman's parents chose life and he was adopted in small-town USA by real Americans who run our factories, harvest our meat-bearing animals, and wave Old Glory down at the courthouse and the churches, not in Washington D.C. by cynical power-brokers and liberal scientists."
—Steve Aydt
Some gems:
Runner-up: "In the soft periwinkle glow of the proud Alaskan morning, I awoke from my sweet slumber and sauntered over to the window to gaze longingly at that mysterious, mystical land in the distance that is Russia."
—Jessica Bonness
Second place: "Here's a little news flash for your Department of Media: Superman's parents chose life and he was adopted in small-town USA by real Americans who run our factories, harvest our meat-bearing animals, and wave Old Glory down at the courthouse and the churches, not in Washington D.C. by cynical power-brokers and liberal scientists."
—Steve Aydt
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Discovery of a New Author
New authors are a dime a dozen. Check out the 'Books' section in any newspaper and there, a whole crop of never-heard-of-before authors who have apparently come up with great works which will change the world. Browse through the "New Fiction" section in the library and half of the books there have the sentence "New York Times Bestseller" on their covers. And then you read the book, try very much to like it (after all, if the NYT says it's a best seller, then there's probably something to it), and then realize it's no use, it's complete crap and bunkum. No, new authors are really not that great to talk (or write a blog) about.
MY new author is a pretty old one- from the 1800's in fact. A FEMALE author. An INDIAN female author (whaaa?? Who the heck is this woman? How did she slip past my eagle eyed scrutiny for all these years?). Toru Dutt is she.
Toru Dutt would have probably become incredibly famous as a writer, poet and translator had she lived. She might have become the Indian Jane Austen. However, since she died when she was 22, she is relegated to the "might-have-beens" of truly tragic proportions. Think about this: she was fluent in English, Bengali, French (which she learned during the 6 months she spent in France) and was learning Sanskrit. Before she died, she had written 2 books in French, translated one more from French to English and written at least one really famous poem (called "Our Casuarina Tree"- which, I'll admit, I had never heard of, but then again, I cannot claim any familiarity with poetry. I know a total of 3 poems: Abu Ben Adam, by Leigh Hunt, which I had to learn in 1st standard, Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge, which I know because RK keeps quoting lines from it, and The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe).
Anyway, interesting tidbit of epidemiology: Toru Dutt and her siblings all died of consumption, one after another. Ah, if only people knew to wear masks then.
Got around to reading "Le Journal de Mademoiselle D'Arvers"- the English version, not the French. What are its good points? It's well imagined- it has a good number of characters with depth, it paints a nice picture of pre-Revolution rural France. The girl (Mademoiselle D'Arvers) makes a good heroine- she's beautiful and virtuous (what else?), kind, compassionate etc etc. Dutt has made her an independent thinker, who is given the freedom to make her own choices- which is a pretty radical thing when you consider that this book was written in the early 19th century by a sheltered girl from India.
Unfortunately, there is no suspense in the book. You know how it's going to end from the beginning.
Also annoying was (and this is not Dutt's fault) the translation. It was done by someone called N.Kamala, who slips once in a while into a form of colloquial English which is jarring and sudden and frankly painful. Mademoiselle asks, "How's it going?" on one page. On another, she asks "What's up?".
What's up?? Seriously? Couldn't you find a better way of expressing that, N.Kamala? Do you seriously think ANYone, French or English or American or Indian, from the 1800s would have gone around asking that question in that particular way?
All in all, an interesting read for a lazy afternoon.
MY new author is a pretty old one- from the 1800's in fact. A FEMALE author. An INDIAN female author (whaaa?? Who the heck is this woman? How did she slip past my eagle eyed scrutiny for all these years?). Toru Dutt is she.
Toru Dutt would have probably become incredibly famous as a writer, poet and translator had she lived. She might have become the Indian Jane Austen. However, since she died when she was 22, she is relegated to the "might-have-beens" of truly tragic proportions. Think about this: she was fluent in English, Bengali, French (which she learned during the 6 months she spent in France) and was learning Sanskrit. Before she died, she had written 2 books in French, translated one more from French to English and written at least one really famous poem (called "Our Casuarina Tree"- which, I'll admit, I had never heard of, but then again, I cannot claim any familiarity with poetry. I know a total of 3 poems: Abu Ben Adam, by Leigh Hunt, which I had to learn in 1st standard, Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge, which I know because RK keeps quoting lines from it, and The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe).
Anyway, interesting tidbit of epidemiology: Toru Dutt and her siblings all died of consumption, one after another. Ah, if only people knew to wear masks then.
Got around to reading "Le Journal de Mademoiselle D'Arvers"- the English version, not the French. What are its good points? It's well imagined- it has a good number of characters with depth, it paints a nice picture of pre-Revolution rural France. The girl (Mademoiselle D'Arvers) makes a good heroine- she's beautiful and virtuous (what else?), kind, compassionate etc etc. Dutt has made her an independent thinker, who is given the freedom to make her own choices- which is a pretty radical thing when you consider that this book was written in the early 19th century by a sheltered girl from India.
Unfortunately, there is no suspense in the book. You know how it's going to end from the beginning.
Also annoying was (and this is not Dutt's fault) the translation. It was done by someone called N.Kamala, who slips once in a while into a form of colloquial English which is jarring and sudden and frankly painful. Mademoiselle asks, "How's it going?" on one page. On another, she asks "What's up?".
What's up?? Seriously? Couldn't you find a better way of expressing that, N.Kamala? Do you seriously think ANYone, French or English or American or Indian, from the 1800s would have gone around asking that question in that particular way?
All in all, an interesting read for a lazy afternoon.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Fat
.. is how I feel.
I can't get into the clothes that fit me barely 4 weeks ago.... waaaahhhh
And today I couldn't do any work, because every time I got up to do so, I thought I needed to eat first. And so I did.
And now I'm wondering if I can blame all this on the wiggly fetus (WF, for short) or if I have turned into one of those gluttons who are always craving food just because they are used to eating all the time.
Speaking of WF, Monday will be the day I'll get to check him/her out again- the first time since that day in September when I was expecting to see a ruptured, hemorrhaged, and emptied womb and instead caught sight of my little, dancing WF. That sight was what brought me some degree of feeling, towards WF, warmer than that of imminent doom. You've got to hand it to the kid, surviving a godawful hemorrage and dancing in the aftermath. Of course, WF didn't really look like a kid at the time, more like a baby lizard, but still.
Will I ever be able to fit into my old clothes five months from now? I'll probably have to go on some marathon exercise/crash diet routine to do so. In the meantime, thank God for drawstring pants.
Come to think of it, Monday may be the day I find out if WF is a boy or a girl. From my vast (not) epidemiological studies, I have concluded that people whose origins are from countries where sex testing of fetuses is banned (India, China) or where sex testing is expensive (most of the world) are the ones most likely to instantly agree to find out (once they get pregnant in America, I mean) the sex of their unborn child. Caucasians are the ones who blithely say, 'Oh, we want a surprise'. The rest of the world is in a frenzy to know, to plan and to reorder their thoughts, if necessary.
My gut feeling is that WF is a boy... only because of the rather painful kicks that WF has been administering to me. Surely I was never that active as a child? Oh, let's not forget the amount of food I've been consuming for the past few months now. Surely, I never needed that amount of feeding as a baby?
Digression: My mom says I was a pretty quiet baby, who peed a lot, earning me the nickname of "Boiler"- in those days before Racold Instant Heaters, water would be poured into a big brass vessel known as a boiler, which had a heating coil in it and a few minutes later, hot water would come out through an opening. My uncle apparently thought it was vastly amusing that I did the same.
The sooner I find out what WF is, the better. What if WF is actually a girl? Then all this unconcious thought (not so unconcious now, I guess) about WF being a boy will totally have me unprepared for that.
Not that RK and I are particularly prepared for anything. We don't have a clue about what to do with a baby. RK has plans of speaking only in Sanskrit and of great people who achieved success in the medical and public health fields so that the baby will be motivated to be the same. "Fine, as long as you also change the diapers while doing all this. I've read that baby poop is disgusting and smelly", I tell him. Upon which, he pauses and changes the subject. That is the sum extent of our planning.
In addition to drawstring pants, I also thank God for mothers. Mine and RK's will be there for a few months to help out after the delivery, so I presume they will know what to do.
I can't get into the clothes that fit me barely 4 weeks ago.... waaaahhhh
And today I couldn't do any work, because every time I got up to do so, I thought I needed to eat first. And so I did.
And now I'm wondering if I can blame all this on the wiggly fetus (WF, for short) or if I have turned into one of those gluttons who are always craving food just because they are used to eating all the time.
Speaking of WF, Monday will be the day I'll get to check him/her out again- the first time since that day in September when I was expecting to see a ruptured, hemorrhaged, and emptied womb and instead caught sight of my little, dancing WF. That sight was what brought me some degree of feeling, towards WF, warmer than that of imminent doom. You've got to hand it to the kid, surviving a godawful hemorrage and dancing in the aftermath. Of course, WF didn't really look like a kid at the time, more like a baby lizard, but still.
Will I ever be able to fit into my old clothes five months from now? I'll probably have to go on some marathon exercise/crash diet routine to do so. In the meantime, thank God for drawstring pants.
Come to think of it, Monday may be the day I find out if WF is a boy or a girl. From my vast (not) epidemiological studies, I have concluded that people whose origins are from countries where sex testing of fetuses is banned (India, China) or where sex testing is expensive (most of the world) are the ones most likely to instantly agree to find out (once they get pregnant in America, I mean) the sex of their unborn child. Caucasians are the ones who blithely say, 'Oh, we want a surprise'. The rest of the world is in a frenzy to know, to plan and to reorder their thoughts, if necessary.
My gut feeling is that WF is a boy... only because of the rather painful kicks that WF has been administering to me. Surely I was never that active as a child? Oh, let's not forget the amount of food I've been consuming for the past few months now. Surely, I never needed that amount of feeding as a baby?
Digression: My mom says I was a pretty quiet baby, who peed a lot, earning me the nickname of "Boiler"- in those days before Racold Instant Heaters, water would be poured into a big brass vessel known as a boiler, which had a heating coil in it and a few minutes later, hot water would come out through an opening. My uncle apparently thought it was vastly amusing that I did the same.
The sooner I find out what WF is, the better. What if WF is actually a girl? Then all this unconcious thought (not so unconcious now, I guess) about WF being a boy will totally have me unprepared for that.
Not that RK and I are particularly prepared for anything. We don't have a clue about what to do with a baby. RK has plans of speaking only in Sanskrit and of great people who achieved success in the medical and public health fields so that the baby will be motivated to be the same. "Fine, as long as you also change the diapers while doing all this. I've read that baby poop is disgusting and smelly", I tell him. Upon which, he pauses and changes the subject. That is the sum extent of our planning.
In addition to drawstring pants, I also thank God for mothers. Mine and RK's will be there for a few months to help out after the delivery, so I presume they will know what to do.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Fate and the Collider
In the science section of today's online issue of the New York Times, there is an essay by Dennis Overbye called "The Collider, the Particle and a Theory about Fate".
Here, he explains a hypothesis put forth by two physicists, a hypothesis, in my opinion, which is outrageous, ridiculous, elegant and beautiful at the same time.
Let me try to put it back here on paper, without seeming like I'm regurgitating Overbye.
The Large Hadron Collider was completed on 10th October 2008. 9 days later, it sputtered to a stop because of a malfunction in its superconductors. Apparently, there was a soldering error.
The error was big enough that it has taken more than a year to repair. The Collider is expected to be back in business in December of this year.
One of the main purposes of the Collider was to isolate something called a Higg's boson. I don't know what that is, and Wikipedia does not explain things in an easy enough manner. What I do know is that a boson is named after Bose- our own, Bangla, Satyendranath Bose (A story for another time: the overt racism of the Nobel committee in not awarding him a prize). There are many types of bosons (whatever they are) and one such boson is called a Higg's boson. It is, of course, only theoretically postulated to exist. Higg's boson is the particle that is expected to give all elements their mass. Without a boson, protons and neutrons won't have mass, which means nothing else in the universe will. Strange, no?
Now for the crazy and wonderful theory: two physicists, Holger Nielson and Masao Ninomiya, have put forth the idea that to make a Higg's boson might be so against the very nature of errr... Nature, that its creation might trigger a backward wave of events that prevent its creation. Huh?
They postulate that it may just be so unnatural for a Higg's boson to be isolated that events will arrange themselves so that it may not be isolated.
Case in point: the October 19th Collider malfunction.
Another case in point: the dismantling of the US Superconducting Supercollider (also designed to find the Higg's boson), despite the fact that billions of dollars had already poured into that project.
See what I mean by ridiculous, yet beautiful hypothesis?
The thing is, there's no way you can prove it for the satisfaction of all. You can only disprove it.... or perhaps you cannot.
A reference to the original essay that prompted this entry: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?ref=science
Here, he explains a hypothesis put forth by two physicists, a hypothesis, in my opinion, which is outrageous, ridiculous, elegant and beautiful at the same time.
Let me try to put it back here on paper, without seeming like I'm regurgitating Overbye.
The Large Hadron Collider was completed on 10th October 2008. 9 days later, it sputtered to a stop because of a malfunction in its superconductors. Apparently, there was a soldering error.
The error was big enough that it has taken more than a year to repair. The Collider is expected to be back in business in December of this year.
One of the main purposes of the Collider was to isolate something called a Higg's boson. I don't know what that is, and Wikipedia does not explain things in an easy enough manner. What I do know is that a boson is named after Bose- our own, Bangla, Satyendranath Bose (A story for another time: the overt racism of the Nobel committee in not awarding him a prize). There are many types of bosons (whatever they are) and one such boson is called a Higg's boson. It is, of course, only theoretically postulated to exist. Higg's boson is the particle that is expected to give all elements their mass. Without a boson, protons and neutrons won't have mass, which means nothing else in the universe will. Strange, no?
Now for the crazy and wonderful theory: two physicists, Holger Nielson and Masao Ninomiya, have put forth the idea that to make a Higg's boson might be so against the very nature of errr... Nature, that its creation might trigger a backward wave of events that prevent its creation. Huh?
They postulate that it may just be so unnatural for a Higg's boson to be isolated that events will arrange themselves so that it may not be isolated.
Case in point: the October 19th Collider malfunction.
Another case in point: the dismantling of the US Superconducting Supercollider (also designed to find the Higg's boson), despite the fact that billions of dollars had already poured into that project.
See what I mean by ridiculous, yet beautiful hypothesis?
The thing is, there's no way you can prove it for the satisfaction of all. You can only disprove it.... or perhaps you cannot.
A reference to the original essay that prompted this entry: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?ref=science
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Diwali!
This year is the first since I moved out of my parents' house in Bangalore that I actually did something to celebrate Diwali.
Ever since leaving India and coming to the US, my perception of Diwali has undergone many changes. During my first year here, there was still the excitement, a desire to celebrate as a way of capturing memories associated with Diwali in India, a way to shrug off the homesickness. Also, not to forget, the hope that finally I could get something good to eat without having to pay too much for it, or without having to work at it- the Indian temple at Pittsburgh traditionally has a Diwali 'feast' and the universities nearby arrange for transportation of their poor, car-lacking graduate students.
After that first year though, Diwali became something of a non-issue. Going to Diwali festivals organized by any body- the Temple, or the Graduate Student Associations- became a drag. The time wasted in waiting in long lines for bad food would be much better spent staying at home and watching TV. I would listen to my mom's description of all the fire crackers, clothes and food that they had bought for Diwali. The sheer distance - geographical and emotional- won against any envy I might have felt, and soon I was listening to all these descriptions with mere indulgence.
Marriage made no difference. Last year's Diwali was the first one after my marriage and Ram was in Honduras on a Global Health fellowship. So of course, when I received excited emails and calls from India wishing us a very happy first Diwali, I shrugged and was convinced that the magic of Diwali had completely disappeared.
This year is different, though. Our baby seems strong and reasonably healthy inside me. Both Ram and I are suddenly desperate to embrace everything Indian and everything that we used to love as children. We both want our child to know and love our culture and to know how much festivals like Diwali mean to us, average Indians. And if this means taking a day off from work to plan and prepare for a menu, or waking up early to be able to do the millions of things that are to be done on Diwali day before sun rise, then so be it.
So today, I woke up at 5:30am, cleaned the kitchen counters, the floors and washed the utensils, all the while thinking, if I had been more like mom, I would have done this last night. Then took an oil bath, lit the lamps, drew a rangoli (or what was supposed to be rangoli) outside the house, prayed, kept new clothes for Ram and me to be blessed by God, and cooked. I didn't have to think too much about what to cook- there's a standard formula that my mom has for breakfast on festivals- paruppu sadam, 2 pachadis, one or two veggie karumidus, vadais, rasam, thair sadam and payasam. I felt I could easily manage a shorter version. So I made the paruppu, mango pachadi, kosambri, applams, thair sadam and payasam- all by 8:45am!!
Then, feeling like an accomplished Tamizh maami, I sat, like my Perima would, at the window of the house, looking out at the world, waiting for the man to return from his overnight call at the hospital.
After he bathes and eats, we will go to the temple, just like we used to in India (but no need to dodge the fire crackers on the road) and we will come back and take a long, long nap.
What else is Diwali but the chance to eat well and dress well and sleep well?
Ever since leaving India and coming to the US, my perception of Diwali has undergone many changes. During my first year here, there was still the excitement, a desire to celebrate as a way of capturing memories associated with Diwali in India, a way to shrug off the homesickness. Also, not to forget, the hope that finally I could get something good to eat without having to pay too much for it, or without having to work at it- the Indian temple at Pittsburgh traditionally has a Diwali 'feast' and the universities nearby arrange for transportation of their poor, car-lacking graduate students.
After that first year though, Diwali became something of a non-issue. Going to Diwali festivals organized by any body- the Temple, or the Graduate Student Associations- became a drag. The time wasted in waiting in long lines for bad food would be much better spent staying at home and watching TV. I would listen to my mom's description of all the fire crackers, clothes and food that they had bought for Diwali. The sheer distance - geographical and emotional- won against any envy I might have felt, and soon I was listening to all these descriptions with mere indulgence.
Marriage made no difference. Last year's Diwali was the first one after my marriage and Ram was in Honduras on a Global Health fellowship. So of course, when I received excited emails and calls from India wishing us a very happy first Diwali, I shrugged and was convinced that the magic of Diwali had completely disappeared.
This year is different, though. Our baby seems strong and reasonably healthy inside me. Both Ram and I are suddenly desperate to embrace everything Indian and everything that we used to love as children. We both want our child to know and love our culture and to know how much festivals like Diwali mean to us, average Indians. And if this means taking a day off from work to plan and prepare for a menu, or waking up early to be able to do the millions of things that are to be done on Diwali day before sun rise, then so be it.
So today, I woke up at 5:30am, cleaned the kitchen counters, the floors and washed the utensils, all the while thinking, if I had been more like mom, I would have done this last night. Then took an oil bath, lit the lamps, drew a rangoli (or what was supposed to be rangoli) outside the house, prayed, kept new clothes for Ram and me to be blessed by God, and cooked. I didn't have to think too much about what to cook- there's a standard formula that my mom has for breakfast on festivals- paruppu sadam, 2 pachadis, one or two veggie karumidus, vadais, rasam, thair sadam and payasam. I felt I could easily manage a shorter version. So I made the paruppu, mango pachadi, kosambri, applams, thair sadam and payasam- all by 8:45am!!
Then, feeling like an accomplished Tamizh maami, I sat, like my Perima would, at the window of the house, looking out at the world, waiting for the man to return from his overnight call at the hospital.
After he bathes and eats, we will go to the temple, just like we used to in India (but no need to dodge the fire crackers on the road) and we will come back and take a long, long nap.
What else is Diwali but the chance to eat well and dress well and sleep well?
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Training a husband
One year since my marriage, I know what to expect and what not to expect from the man. I can expect discussions lasting for hours about everything under the sun, great insights into science, medicine, cricket and Indian politics. I can expect bickering, laughter, melodrama, teasing and unconditional support for whatever I like to do.
What I definitely cannot expect is help with household chores: I do the laundry and the dishes and the cooking and the cleaning and the groceries and the taxes. If I ask him for help, the man always find a book that he simply cannot keep down, or an article that is of crucial importance, or, if all else fails, an urgent call of nature that lasts for a couple of hours. I groan and whine and eventually do whatever needs to be done.
My parents were here for 3 months, during which I realized I was pregnant. After getting used to an endless stream of hot food kept in front of me, of a well organized kitchen, of clean clothes ironed and folded neatly, of trash boxes never getting overloaded to such an extent that the whole house smelled of trash, I was left adrift, bereft, once my parents left.
It took me three weeks to recover from this. I found that I didn't want to cook, or clean or eat anything that I had to cook. Nor did I want to eat out. I just wanted things to be the way they had been for the past three months. The man was blissfully unaware of my growing desperation. He was on an inpatient rotation at the hospital and he had his hands full. Even if he had been aware of what was going on with me, there wasn't much he could have done about it, since he had to leave by 6am and would return after 10pm.
I cried a lot, wrote long and whiny emails to anybody that I could think of, ate a lot of junk food and did no work in the lab. I had no energy.
Then the man, bless him, took 4 days off and took me to the Bahamas for a vacation. No beds to make, no guilt trips about unclean houses or not wanting to cook. There, under that warm sun, by the beach, I made a resolution: we would cook at home and eat healthy, we would have that laundry done and we would not keep any dirty dishes stacked up for too long. I mentioned to this to the man, who was enthusiastic about it. But I did not mention the plan I was forming in my head, but instead pondered about it until I was ready to give it a try.
The reason the man doesn't do household chores is because he thinks they are dreary, mundane, not worth the time that could be spent thinking of magnificent, inspiring thoughts. "I have to sell it to him right", I thought, and hence devised this plan:
For cooking: I would cut all the veggies and keep all the ingredients ready and then make it into a game. He would have to pretend to be a surgeon performing an operation and I would be the nurse handing him all the ingredients. In the end, he would cook, I would watch and surreptitiously supervise, and I wouldn't feel like I was doing all the work.
For laundry: we would take all the clothes to a laundromat, dump them there, and then go out for coffee and discussions about the world. That way, we would both get what we wanted.
For trash: emotionally blackmail him into doing so, by reminding him of pregnant state.
House cleaning: would just have to wait until everything else worked out.
Well. One week after we have returned from the BA, I can report results:
Trash: plan works wonderfully. Will have to change tactics somewhat to continue with success, because man realized instantly what game was up.
Laundry: also has worked surprisingly well. No change of tactics necessary, as man has bought into the idea quite well.
Cooking: Hmm... this plan would have worked better if I had had more self control. I cut the veggies and kept all the ingredients ready. I cooed to the man in the nicest way and said, "Won't you help me with this, baby? It always works so much better when you do it. Let's pretend that you're a surgeon and I'm a nurse and I'll watch you cook". It worked well for the first few minutes. Then man started showing off a bit too much. He said, "See, when you cook, you don't do it scientifically. There's a reason we add this bit first and that bit afterwards. And you hurry up too much. You have to let it blend in, absorb, synthesize", and so on. So much that, halfway through the cooking, I lost my temper, whacked him on the bum and told him I could manage very well by myself, thank you.
And that was the end of that.
Now the kitchen is my domain once more and I need to figure out how to get that man back in again.
* to be continued*
What I definitely cannot expect is help with household chores: I do the laundry and the dishes and the cooking and the cleaning and the groceries and the taxes. If I ask him for help, the man always find a book that he simply cannot keep down, or an article that is of crucial importance, or, if all else fails, an urgent call of nature that lasts for a couple of hours. I groan and whine and eventually do whatever needs to be done.
My parents were here for 3 months, during which I realized I was pregnant. After getting used to an endless stream of hot food kept in front of me, of a well organized kitchen, of clean clothes ironed and folded neatly, of trash boxes never getting overloaded to such an extent that the whole house smelled of trash, I was left adrift, bereft, once my parents left.
It took me three weeks to recover from this. I found that I didn't want to cook, or clean or eat anything that I had to cook. Nor did I want to eat out. I just wanted things to be the way they had been for the past three months. The man was blissfully unaware of my growing desperation. He was on an inpatient rotation at the hospital and he had his hands full. Even if he had been aware of what was going on with me, there wasn't much he could have done about it, since he had to leave by 6am and would return after 10pm.
I cried a lot, wrote long and whiny emails to anybody that I could think of, ate a lot of junk food and did no work in the lab. I had no energy.
Then the man, bless him, took 4 days off and took me to the Bahamas for a vacation. No beds to make, no guilt trips about unclean houses or not wanting to cook. There, under that warm sun, by the beach, I made a resolution: we would cook at home and eat healthy, we would have that laundry done and we would not keep any dirty dishes stacked up for too long. I mentioned to this to the man, who was enthusiastic about it. But I did not mention the plan I was forming in my head, but instead pondered about it until I was ready to give it a try.
The reason the man doesn't do household chores is because he thinks they are dreary, mundane, not worth the time that could be spent thinking of magnificent, inspiring thoughts. "I have to sell it to him right", I thought, and hence devised this plan:
For cooking: I would cut all the veggies and keep all the ingredients ready and then make it into a game. He would have to pretend to be a surgeon performing an operation and I would be the nurse handing him all the ingredients. In the end, he would cook, I would watch and surreptitiously supervise, and I wouldn't feel like I was doing all the work.
For laundry: we would take all the clothes to a laundromat, dump them there, and then go out for coffee and discussions about the world. That way, we would both get what we wanted.
For trash: emotionally blackmail him into doing so, by reminding him of pregnant state.
House cleaning: would just have to wait until everything else worked out.
Well. One week after we have returned from the BA, I can report results:
Trash: plan works wonderfully. Will have to change tactics somewhat to continue with success, because man realized instantly what game was up.
Laundry: also has worked surprisingly well. No change of tactics necessary, as man has bought into the idea quite well.
Cooking: Hmm... this plan would have worked better if I had had more self control. I cut the veggies and kept all the ingredients ready. I cooed to the man in the nicest way and said, "Won't you help me with this, baby? It always works so much better when you do it. Let's pretend that you're a surgeon and I'm a nurse and I'll watch you cook". It worked well for the first few minutes. Then man started showing off a bit too much. He said, "See, when you cook, you don't do it scientifically. There's a reason we add this bit first and that bit afterwards. And you hurry up too much. You have to let it blend in, absorb, synthesize", and so on. So much that, halfway through the cooking, I lost my temper, whacked him on the bum and told him I could manage very well by myself, thank you.
And that was the end of that.
Now the kitchen is my domain once more and I need to figure out how to get that man back in again.
* to be continued*
Language
For some reason, I seem to be coming across a lot of stuff about language these days. From Lewis Thomas' "The Youngest Science" (my gift to RK as a reward for doing the dishes and the laundry), I found out that the word 'leech' meaning both doctor and worm (and worm used by doctor) has two entirely different roots. Leech the doctor came before leech the worm, most surprisingly.
Also from one of Thomas' other books is the idea that language is the social network that binds humans, and humanizes us. We would not be what we are, if not for language and our incessant need to communicate.
Magee Women's Hospital has a course on "How to Talk to Your Baby before Your Baby Learns to Talk" where baby sign language is taught to parents. Who knew there was something called baby sign language?
Anyway, the latest in all this:
Olivia Judson (she of the 'Dr.Tatiana' fame) has written on alarm calls in animals:
http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/leopard-behind-you/
Also from one of Thomas' other books is the idea that language is the social network that binds humans, and humanizes us. We would not be what we are, if not for language and our incessant need to communicate.
Magee Women's Hospital has a course on "How to Talk to Your Baby before Your Baby Learns to Talk" where baby sign language is taught to parents. Who knew there was something called baby sign language?
Anyway, the latest in all this:
Olivia Judson (she of the 'Dr.Tatiana' fame) has written on alarm calls in animals:
http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/leopard-behind-you/
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Training to be a scientist
It confuses me when people ask me what I am. I'm a PhD student in Microbiology. What I assumed, when I first started out, is that I would be a scientist. Except that, five years down the line, I don't feel like one.
The vision of a scientist I have in mind is someone who has a broad knowledge of a lot of aspects of science- not merely factual information. It has to be someone who understands the history and philosophy of science, not someone who merely keeps abreast of the latest news, but who can put it in broad perspective and a historical context. It has to be someone who looks at scientific success not just as a list of publications. My ideal scientist has to think- and disseminate these thoughts extensively and accessibly- about scientific education, about ways to inspire younger people to seek answers for themselves.
When you search for articles on biomedical graduate education either on Google or Pubmed, the articles that come up are very rarely relevant. After sifting through dozens of results on graduate programs, you may stumble across a decade-old article that may be slightly useful. Invariably, even these articles are found, not in reputed scientific journals, but in medical journals. Medicine, unlike science, has a long history of people constantly thinking about undergraduate and graduate medical education, redefining core competencies in each field, addressing problems that may affect this education and so on.
Perhaps one reason for this is the rather mistaken assumption that science is an individual endeavor- one struggles and struggles and suddenly finds the light. While this is certainly a prevalent notion in the minds of PhD students about their doctoral work, surely this cannot be sufficient for producing scientists of any calibre? Seeking answers to important questions is surely something that cannot be done in a trice, but there needs to be some better ways of training people to do so. Putting them in a laboratory, generating a set of experiments to be done by some deadline and churning out papers is the wrong way of doing it. This method may work in the long run: the young graduate follows this same path through post doc and early independent work, and suddenly after decades of this, is in a position to clearly see how it all fits in it. But most likely, it will deaden the enthusiasm of young people entering the field (the Council for Graduate Education in the US estimates that 24% of the candidates entering a doctoral program in life sciences will end up leaving the program without getting their degrees)
My idea of a successful training program would be to ensure that all students understand the path of science. We didn't get to the point that we are in miraculously and instantly. What we know now has taken decades, if not centuries, of questioning, observation, hypothesizing and thought. Unless graduate students know of and understand the historical thought processes that have ultimately led to a particular question, there can be no appreciation for the magnitude or the scale of the scientific question that they are now posing. Instead their vision can only be limited- limited by the minor sub questions that they must break down the larger question into, and by the mundane practicalities of day to day laboratory work.
This, if it doesn't kill any love for science, will only produce mediocre researchers or lab workers who, biased by their own view of science, can only pose variations on the questions that have already been asked before.
The vision of a scientist I have in mind is someone who has a broad knowledge of a lot of aspects of science- not merely factual information. It has to be someone who understands the history and philosophy of science, not someone who merely keeps abreast of the latest news, but who can put it in broad perspective and a historical context. It has to be someone who looks at scientific success not just as a list of publications. My ideal scientist has to think- and disseminate these thoughts extensively and accessibly- about scientific education, about ways to inspire younger people to seek answers for themselves.
When you search for articles on biomedical graduate education either on Google or Pubmed, the articles that come up are very rarely relevant. After sifting through dozens of results on graduate programs, you may stumble across a decade-old article that may be slightly useful. Invariably, even these articles are found, not in reputed scientific journals, but in medical journals. Medicine, unlike science, has a long history of people constantly thinking about undergraduate and graduate medical education, redefining core competencies in each field, addressing problems that may affect this education and so on.
Perhaps one reason for this is the rather mistaken assumption that science is an individual endeavor- one struggles and struggles and suddenly finds the light. While this is certainly a prevalent notion in the minds of PhD students about their doctoral work, surely this cannot be sufficient for producing scientists of any calibre? Seeking answers to important questions is surely something that cannot be done in a trice, but there needs to be some better ways of training people to do so. Putting them in a laboratory, generating a set of experiments to be done by some deadline and churning out papers is the wrong way of doing it. This method may work in the long run: the young graduate follows this same path through post doc and early independent work, and suddenly after decades of this, is in a position to clearly see how it all fits in it. But most likely, it will deaden the enthusiasm of young people entering the field (the Council for Graduate Education in the US estimates that 24% of the candidates entering a doctoral program in life sciences will end up leaving the program without getting their degrees)
My idea of a successful training program would be to ensure that all students understand the path of science. We didn't get to the point that we are in miraculously and instantly. What we know now has taken decades, if not centuries, of questioning, observation, hypothesizing and thought. Unless graduate students know of and understand the historical thought processes that have ultimately led to a particular question, there can be no appreciation for the magnitude or the scale of the scientific question that they are now posing. Instead their vision can only be limited- limited by the minor sub questions that they must break down the larger question into, and by the mundane practicalities of day to day laboratory work.
This, if it doesn't kill any love for science, will only produce mediocre researchers or lab workers who, biased by their own view of science, can only pose variations on the questions that have already been asked before.
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